Belts for use by persons for securing personal items to the person are generally known. In their simplest form, a belt may be placed around the waist of the wearer and be used to hold up the pants of the wearer.
In other forms, a belt may be modified to carrying other materials. For example, a series of loops may be provided on an outer surface of the belt and the belt may be used by the military to carry ammunition. In this case, the modified belt may be worn around the waist of the user or over the shoulder.
In other cases, a holster for a handgun may be attached to a belt in a location directly below either the right or left arm of a wearer. In this case, the belt may or may not also include loops on the outer surface to carry ammunition for the handgun.
In the case of the police, belts may be further modified to carry other required equipment. Examples include handcuffs, baton, flashlight, etc. In the case of a holster for handcuffs, batons or flashlight, the holster may be permanently attached (e.g., sewing, rivets, etc.) or provided with a metal clasp the slides over a top edge of the belt and grips the belt from both sides.
In case of a belt with a receptacle for handcuffs, the user must also carry a handcuff key. While a handcuff holster could also have a pocket for the key, the key is usually carried in the clothing of the user because an exposed or visible key may be retrieved by a prisoner during a struggle or secretly without knowledge of the custodian of the prisoner, thereby potentially resulting in the release of the handcuffs and danger of attack on the custodian.
While current practices of securing prisoners with handcuffs works well, handcuff keys can be lost either during a struggle with a prisoner or because the user cannot remember where he/she placed the key. Accordingly, better methods are needed for the control of handcuff keys.